Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso ... and Pac-Man: passing in front of the Grand Palais in Paris, this odd conjunction sparks a shiver. The masters of fauvism and impressionism are rubbing shoulders with the pixel-heroes who star in Game Story, a history of videogames, in the south-east gallery.

It has taken 40 years for videogames to graduate from being a shameful subculture to a mass-market product. The Paris exhibition goes one step further, thanks to the symbolic significance of the venue and the promise it holds for a permanent showcase for videogaming culture.

"Videogames suffer from being a young media, with its share of cliches and preconceptions, much as cinema in its early days," says Jérôme Neutres, an adviser to the head of Grand Palais. "We thought it was important to highlight [videogames'] place in aesthetic and cultural history, showing the influences on which they fed and their own subsequent impact." The most obvious connection is with film, the elder brother with whom videogames share so many attributes. Mario, Nintendo's diminutive plumber and the world's first pixel-hero, spends his time racing from level to level in search of his princess, much as Buster Keaton did in Seven Chances, released in 1925. In his latest film, Drive, director Nicolas Winding Refn openly borrows from Gran Turismo or Grand Theft Auto.

To position videogames in contemporary art and culture the Grand Palais and MO5.com, which has done wonders collecting and preserving digital heritage, selected 80 games that they present in chronological order. Better still, they are running on the original consoles or arcade machines, waiting for visitors to grab the controls.

Progressing from Pong, a rudimentary tennis game released in 1972 (two little bars and a square "ball"), to today's realistic three-dimensional characters, it is easy to see the scale of the technical and aesthetic changes. The show is intended for both complete beginners and seasoned gamers, operating on two levels as a process of initiation or as a nostalgic indulgence. "Above all we are targeting non-gamers, situating each game and machine in its historical context in order to emphasise its importance as heritage," Neutres explains.

Film posters, cartoons and books show that neither Lara Croft (of Tomb Raider fame) nor Donkey Kong were chance inventions, that they are just as much the product of an era as their predecessors Popeye and Indiana Jones. Only the spectacular side of videogames is really missing. A few large displays capable of revealing the full power of the graphic design and textures deployed here would have given Game Story some additional depth. But this omission does not spoil the pleasure we felt at this celebration of videogames' 40th anniversary in a setting worthy of their significance and influence.